Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-04-01

1ne regulars, and promising them or;te .
aa!se bounty to do so. This order a. o,.oa
stLireo up a great uproar in The comns
wh'cn 1ora time threatened to moLo sar;ap,s .,
.rouoie. There was everywhere discna ;on
VIZ. Ihucn excitement among the soldiers
Mnu ptotests n circumstances from tbo
Jl II IN the end, the matter uuieted
~ and very few availed themselves If
sne privileges OF the order. This result. il
It's .ao"sne' was largely brought about bv
c;rcr, Iua,A OF Joker, which was widely
ehilstlng once he had made of b;msa,t ,
volunteer darned fool, and that he did not
propose now to enlist again, and TINS make
. regular darned fool Of himseifi AA"A0
among army. jokes" may perhaps be
ciassed that cruel, practical one that wos
prayed on Captain Wheeler, Of NV reri-
Men'' Dv the mate Of the bark VoltiQen.
upon %nlch q detachment of us was am,
parked for New Orleans.
we were lying, at the time, in Port ROYAL
n us where the tide rises and falls to an
91tent elsewhere along the coast.
The Captain was a jealous. Enthusiastic
iellow, apt to go at the word, without much
tnought or Judgment. The mate had dis
covered this and quietly marked the Can.
tain for his victim.
you see thu grove?" he said, point
ing 70 tho dim appearance of trees three or
1our miles across the bay. "Well-there
are lots of oranges there. You can get
a Doat-load as easy as not"
"olanges?" said the Captain, "why-I
tnoag6t there were none in South Carolina"
Indeed there are."
"Good ones?"
Certainly; the very best of their kind"
Ihia VOC on0Nrh Co. A. V.-k:- n
speedily got permission to go, and volun-
teers enough from his company to gather
the oranges and row the boat.
The party went before noon; it was long
after dark when they returned, tired, hun
CRY, and very mad. The Captain immc-
diately sought the mate, for an %explana.
ton.
What do you mean, sending ME on such
a fools errand as that?" he demanded.
"How-d.dnt you find the oranges?" the
mate inn%ocently asked.
"Oranges?-yes!-tons of 'em, rs bitter as
so I suppose. That's the kind L always
found over there"
But you said they we're good"
ooh, no; l said they were the yery best
OF their kind, and so they are. You can't
find such bitter oranges anywhere in the
South"
The Captain saw that he was Sold" SO
he wlthdrew the rest of his complaints. He
had been caught at low tide with his heavy
boat a quarter of q mile up from the water,
and had been compelled to wait six hours
for the food. He had to endure quizzing
for q week on the subject.
For pure. unadulterated nonsense, a lot
OF grown men shut up together are much
ahead of boys.
1t was on the long voyage that we made
on this sailing vessel from Port Royal to
New Orleans that in the officers cabin one
night some fend of mischief was prompted
to suddenly extinguish the lights and be-
gin IN nproar. The vexation and annoy
ance Of those who did not wish to Join in it
were speedily changed by a sense of their
personal injuries into q thirst for revenge,
and each man of the two dozen present laid
about him with a will. Stools, pillows,
books, everything portable, flew about in
the darkness with a tumult of cries of pain.
laughter, and war-whoops, and cock-a-
doodle-doos.
In the midst of this pandemonium the
cabin door opened and the Colonel appeared
in the doorway with a lighted candle. Pro-
found silence fell upon the scene. The
Colonel quietly surveyed it for a moment,
and then said:
Now, gentlemen, if you hsyen't had
enough of this tom-foolery, You'd better
go right on with it; because, I tell YOU,
you'll not have another chance on board
this ship"
He doubtless thought that the rebuke
would be sufficient to stop the horse play;
but he did not know the crowd. Bang!-
came a pillow upon the door-frame by his
head; another struck the light from his
hand, leaving US in the dark again; and
counting discretion the part of valor al
such q time, the Colonel prudently with
drew, without waiting for the third pillow.
And then the uproar and tumult was lei
loose again with redoubled vim.
Among the officers was a grave, thought
full man named .Donnelly. who had beer
q divinity student, and who was rarely
seen to smile. He was about six feet three
in height, and almost as rueful in face and
form rs Don Quixote. During the disturb
ances Of the night he had not been in the
cabin ut all; he was walking the deck,
thinking about theology OF something
equally remote from our nonsense. On
the next evening a mock court-martial wat
organized, and the Lieutenant was gravely
arraigned to answer to the charge of Great.
ing the noise and skylarking in the cabin
For once the Lieutenant entered into the
spirit Of the fun, and made o vigorous de.
Tense, in which he got in some
good hits upon his prosecutors.
His absence from the scene Of
the h%ullaballoo was held to be only
an aggravation of the ~otfense; since, it was
urged, had he been present. the mere
solemnity of his yisage would have stopped
all the fun. He was found guilty, ant
sentenced to be shot-but the court added
a recommendation to mercy, on account Of
the youth of the offender, and his previous
long standing among us.
The song, "We got defeated at Ball,
Bluff set agoing early in the war, neve
stopped till the close; and the metre being
handy, and the Dir spirited, the soldiers
were continually adding verses suggested
by their experience. Here is one born O.
the unlucky Red River campai Il, and suns
IA. -. ,,,,&o NVl,1o Cos frrr, op-eoc,